Return of the GOP hawks

John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio are dominating the congressional debate on how to respond to the growing crisis in Iraq, calling for airstrikes on insurgents and blistering the president’s policies on the Senate floor and in the media.

Text Size

-

+

reset

Rubio is chastising President Barack Obama for rejecting the idea of putting boots on the ground while McCain is in such high demand among Senate Republicans that on Tuesday he briefed his colleagues — at their invitation — on his aggressive Iraq policy.

As these Republican voices are rising in the Senate, there is less noise than usual from the party’s more libertarian wing, including possible 2016 presidential contenders Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. Paul has said little about Iraq, except that airstrikes should be considered and that Obama should seek congressional approval for whatever course he considers. Cruz has said even less.

Given the vacuum from the GOP’s libertarian wing, the hawks are driving the Iraq discussion.

“I don’t think it’s wise for the commander in chief to step forward and immediately begin to rule options out. Even if he never intends to send a single American soldier, he shouldn’t be signaling that to terrorists,” Rubio (R-Fla.) said in an interview. “You should not be going around announcing what you won’t do.”

Rubio is no outlier in his interventionist stance. Many of his colleagues believe that Obama was wrong to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011 and is now paying the price, a notion rejected from Democrats who blame the Iraqi government for not negotiating a transitional security force.

And the scene in Iraq has Republicans looking toward the scheduled withdrawal in Afghanistan, where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) thinks Obama should “reverse” course or the U.S. is “likely to see the same kind of meltdown in Afghanistan that we’ve seen in Iraq.”

Following the resurgence of sectarian violence in Iraq, Obama’s announcement that he is sending 275 U.S. troops to the country to guard U.S. interests has the GOP pushing a muscular policy that much of the party — including Rubio — seemed to reject when Obama asked for congressional approval to strike Syria.

Obama has ruled out sending American troops to Iraq but is continuing to mull over other options — including airstrikes. He huddled with his national security team on Monday night and on Wednesday will meet with party leaders in the House and Senate to discuss those options.

Meanwhile Republicans like Rubio and Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn of Texas are arguing that Obama shouldn’t be ruling a single option out, from boots on the ground to targeted airstrikes.

“This is just the beginning of what the United States will have to do just to defend our own people and the embassy,” Cornyn said. “We’re just fighting for the survival of the Americans and the embassy over there. So I wouldn’t be taking anything off the table.”

Of the GOP’s newest generation of senators, Rubio is most in line with McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and the most comfortable discussing foreign affairs and making policy prescriptions. Two potential rivals for the 2016 GOP nomination, Cruz of Texas and Paul of Kentucky, have been significantly more quiet on Iraq than Rubio, who has also spoken about Iraq on the Senate floor.

Cruz referred a pair of reporters to his press office when asked about Iraq, as he did last week. A spokeswoman did not elaborate on Cruz’s Iraq positions.

With Republicans nervous over Paul’s isolationist foreign policy positions — a label he rejects — the Kentucky senator declined to rule out airstrikes over the weekend. But Paul has not said anything significant on Iraq since, and his political adviser Doug Stafford said that if Obama wants to re-engage in Iraq, he needs to bring that request to Capitol Hill for congressional approval.

With Cruz and Paul largely on the sidelines during this debate — so far anyway — the party is still turning to McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on how to engage in Iraq and the argument that the U.S. should never have totally withdrawn.